


Of bonds broken

by Beleriandings



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 19:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3500816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Clariel left Belisaere, a Charter magic binding was placed on her. This is the story of how that binding was broken.</p><p>EDIT: This fic was written before Goldenhand and I guess this is rendered fairly inconsistent with canon by what we learned about her backstory in that book. So take it as some sort of AU I guess?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of bonds broken

The kill, Clariel judged, was relatively fresh, the blood still bright, vivid red against the deer’s pale throat. She frowned at the gashes in the animal’s flank. It did not look like a wolf’s kill, she thought; for a start, there had been no wolves here feeding off it, nor scavengers of any sort, not a raven or a beetle. And no wolf Clariel had ever known would kill like this, rending great tears in the flesh of a creature and then simply leaving it. 

She peered closer, curiosity piqued. Her eyes widened as she saw a great round puncture mark the size of her closed fist, bloody and dark. There were many such wounds, amongst the strips of slashed fur. She tried to imagine what could have made those marks. It would have to be a spike, long and blade-like, wielded by something that had simply left its kill in the forest to rot…

The realisation hit her at almost the same time as the metallic tang of free magic, sharp in the back of her throat. Her head snapped upwards, breath misting out in the cold air, through the mouth hole of the mask. She squinted into the trees around her, hand on the knife at her belt.

Out of the corner of her eye, where the mask cut off her peripheral vision, she caught a flash of motion. Clariel spun quickly on the spot, thrusting out her knife before her.

Nothing.

She stood still for a long while, listening, smelling the air. She could feel the binding within her suddenly, the Charter magic - now so unfamiliar, alien to her - reacting to the free magic, rising like a painful lump in her throat. At least it proved that it had not been merely her imagination. As had her racing heart, the bolt of fierce excitement that had gone through her. The hunger, the wildness.

Still, whatever that momentary flash had been, it was gone now. She focussed on her breathing as she had taught herself; in, out, in, out. Again. The forest was silent.

With a frown, Clariel stepped back from the deer, slipping silently into the trees.

Marral was there when she got back to the little hut at the edge of the clearing. She had cared little for him at first, but she had to admit that after nine years of his company, of all the companions she could have had foisted on her Marral was by no means the worst. He spoke little, and that suited Clariel just fine, and he was kind enough, in a gruff way, and after a few years she found herself almost growing to consider him a friend.

He was also as bound and hobbled as she was.

Belatiel certainly knew his Charter magic, she sometimes thought ruefully, for Marral could not leave her alone for very long, nor disobey her, nor stray too far from her side. And though the binding had weakened with time, the old man had never tried to break it.

Clariel, unbeknownst to Marral himself, had tried to break it for him, and failed. Years ago, when they had first taken their leave of Belisaere, it had disturbed her to see him so compelled to serve. It had been tugging uncomfortably at her own memories. Battling against the will of another, a raging fire inside her head, setting her senses aflame to crack open in pain. Learning to keep the rage down, to control it. Pacing, trapped in a room. The Charter marks that now bound and encircled something within herself, the marks that since the removal of her forehead mark were a foreign thing that was not part of her.

She had longed to break the binding on Marral, to send him away, set him free, but she had failed. She had tried to summon the part of herself within her own Charter magic binding, to access the free magic that she knew was there, that had to be there still. The backlash had been like a kick in the chest, sending her sprawling even as bile rose in the back of her throat, white spots dancing in her eyes.

She had not been strong enough then, Clariel thought as she sat by their small makeshift hearth, watching Marral as he busied himself with the fire.

She remembered what she had thought to herself at the time. _If I could find some free magic, I could do it. I could be strong again._

She frowned, thinking of the dead deer in the clearing, the distinct smell in the air. The shift in the Charter marks embedded in her chest, and the dull, warning pain it caused.

"Did anything… unusual happen while I was gone?" she asked Marral.

"No milady. Nothing out of the ordinary."

He hummed tunelessly as he kindled the fire, and Clariel subsided back into her own thoughts. Was it her imagination, or did the tang of free magic still linger in the back of her throat…?

That night as she lay awake, listening to the silence of the forest outside (was it more silent that usual?) and she turned over forbidden thoughts like smooth stones in her head.  _What if I were to go looking for it, whatever it was? What if I were to try to master it? What then?_

They felt familiar, these thoughts, though they hurt her, a sharp stabbing pain in her throat. The binding, she knew. Again she imagined breaking free of it, testing the limits of her own pain tolerance even as she lay there on her bedroll. Just before she fell asleep, Clariel touched the roughness on her forehead where her Charter mark had been torn from her skin. She had half expected to feel metal there.

The next day dawned iron grey and cold as the one before, her breath misting in the cold morning air. Though it was early still, Marral was up and gone already, as was his wont. Perhaps he had gone to collect firewood; the spell upon him allowed him to stray from her if it was upon such an errand, and so she could not say she blamed him for taking a long while over such tasks. It was what she would have done too, she knew, feeling again a little stab of pity for Marral.

She would go hunting today, she decided. After dressing and washing, Clariel ate a little and then strapped the mask on over her face.

It fit well. It had always fit well.

She did not  _need_  to wear it, precisely; even in the villages, she was mostly impervious to eyes of the children who stared at her when she did not wear it, the adults who recoiled at the sight of her scarred face. And it was vanishingly unlikely that she should be recognised even if there had been anyone else for miles around. Still, wearing it was a habit she had, a barrier to keep the world just a little further out.

She buckled on her belt with her hunting knife in its supple leather sheath, then slung her bow and quiver across her back, over her heavy furs.

Out in the forest, she breathed in the scent of pine needles, fresh and dark and calming. She let herself set off along a familiar path, beside the bank of a brook that took her deeper into the woods, where the trees were thick enough to block out most of the light and turn the water to dark, rippling glass.

Suddenly she felt a twitch in her death-sense, like some small forest creature’s life being extinguished. She was used to that, and yet she turned to look, staring upwards as she heard a rustle in the canopy.

Then something fell out of the nearest tree, landing right at her feet in a small spray of pine needles.

It was a dead bird, a raven, its glassy black eye staring emptily up at her.

Clariel straightened, stepping over the bird, and carried on walking.

A few minutes later, it happened again. Another bird simply dropped down at her feet, quite dead. She frowned upwards into the branches, but she saw nothing there.

The next time it happened, she felt a little stab of anger, the kind that comes with not knowing.  _Who are you_ , she thought. _And why are you doing this?_

"Can’t you guess?" said a voice from behind her, though she had not spoken aloud. The voice was cool and quiet, neither male nor female. Not quite human sounding.

She turned around, scanning the forest.

Nothing.

Pursing her lips, she carried on walking.

"Oh" came the voice again. "Will you not give me your attention then?"

"No" said Clariel aloud, staring determinedly at the ground as she walked.

There was a sound almost like tutting. “Then I will just have to try harder.”

At that moment, before she could react, Clariel felt something slam into her back. At the same time, she felt her death sense surge up again in her head, even as she stumbled forward at the impact. She drew her knife, slashing out, and something sharp was cutting her wrist. The beak of a bird, she realised, as a raven flew at her head, bedraggled wings beating around her hair.

There were more of them, now, swarming around her in the half-light. They were all dead, she realised with a shock, as one cut her scalp, blood soaking into her hair just above the bronze rim of the mask. She felt a flicker of panic, lashing out once more with her blade, hitting one raven even as another pecked mercilessly at her throat, where the mask met her skin.

She was on her knees now and she gritted her teeth, feeling revulsion rise within her at the reanimated dead things, the spirits already beginning to corrode even the fresh bodies. Black feathers exploded around her as she fought. Anger was bubbling below the surface, kept pushed down as she had practiced, but now she let that rise, just a little, letting it strengthen her, lending power to her voice.

“ _Enough_ " she shouted. To her surprise, all the birds fell to the ground at that, the spirits that had animated their bodies all sent back into Death at once, by some will. For a single wild moment Clariel thought that it had been her own command that had done it, but then the strange voice spoke again.

"Luckily" it said, "your face was kept quite safe."

"Who are you?" shouted Clariel, getting cautiously to her feet. "And what do you want from me?"

"I merely wanted to get your attention. And to find out what you are."

Clariel stared around, trying to find the source of the voice. “And did you find out to your satisfaction?” she asked, narrowing her eyes behind the mask.

A short pause. Then the voice spoke again, quieter this time. “Not quite yet.”

Clariel had not time to move or speak or even brace herself, before something heavy was knocking her down to the ground, pinning her wrists… the mask had been knocked to one side on her face, jarring her temple painfully, but still she struggled against the force holding her down, no longer trying to keep back the rage that was boiling up in her once more, a survival mechanism fuelled by panic. She surged upward towards her attacker with a roar, hitting outwards blindly.

Her fist - still gripping her knife - struck flesh with a sickening crunch, real, live flesh, hot blood spurting… then, as suddenly as the assault had begun, her attacker was falling back limply, away from Clariel and back onto the ground. She rose back up onto her feet in fury, whirling around, tearing the slipped mask impatiently from her face.

Then she caught sight of the face of her attacker, lying in a pool of blood on the ground, and her rage drained away, replaced by horror, sluicing over her like ice water and bringing her fully back to herself.

It was Marral, his lined face blotchy and contorted with pain, the life slipping from him even as she watched.

Clariel cried out and dropped to her knees, horror-stricken. He tried to choke out some words, unintelligible as he choked on blood from the gash in his throat that her knife had made.

She felt him die, before she could touch him, before she could do anything but stare in frozen shock. For a long while she simply stood there, over the body of the man who had been her only companion for so long, and, if she was honest with herself, something of a friend.

Then she turned into the trees, holding up the knife again as she felt the berserk fury retuning, but now she was in control again, it was there just below the surface, at her disposal if she needed it…

"Who are you?" she said steadily, through gritted teeth. "Show yourself!"

"I am you" said the voice again, conversationally. "Or rather, I am what you  _could_  be.”

"What does that mean" growled Clariel. She could smell free magic now, twining through the trees.

"You have great power in you. You need to learn to use it" said the voice smoothly. "You have the blood, and the will, and the spirit for it. You are a born necromancer, Clariel, a sorcerer of great power."

She started at that. “That’s not my name” she hissed.

"Then what is your name?"

"What’s yours?" countered Clariel, instead of answering.

"Telunazith" said the creature,  _the free magic thing…_  Clariel could feel it closer now, could feel a spirit, a  _will_ , wrapping around her, exerting a compulsion on her. It was subtle, yes, but it was there. She pushed back, and it gave a quiet, rasping chuckle.

"Don’t you see?" said Telunazith. "You were made for more than this life. Serve me, and you will grow great beyond your wildest dreams. The power of death is one thing…" she felt her head turned, against her will, so that she was looking down to Marral’s body on the ground, "but you can also bring back life. Like so…"

As she watched the body began to twitch, eyes flickering open, and she could feel the dead spirit there. Not Marral’s spirit, no, something  _old_. something that had been called out of death, hungry for life, her life. The eyes glittered silver-black, burning, malevolent as it watched her. Yet the body simply sat there, still, even as Telunazith coiled around her. She could see a mist in the air now, twisted around her body and freezing her in place, locking her muscles, and Clariel began to feel fear in earnest now.

"Come" Telunazith said, as its dead servant watched Clariel. "Command him. Go on. He will listen."

"No" said Clariel, struggling to speak. The binding within her was reacting to the free magic in the air, and she felt a sharp, expanding pain in her chest, crushing her from the inside out. She felt as though she were being torn in two, caught between two forces at war.  _No_ , she thought.  _I will not be a pawn in this fight. I will not be a pawn in_ any _fight._

"No" she said again, a little louder. "No, I will have no part of this. I will not serve you!"

She could almost hear the regretful shrug in Telunazith’s strange inhuman voice that crackled with free magic. “Alright. Have it your own way then.”

Suddenly the dead creature that had been Marral was attacking, flying at her once more, and she was lashing out again. There was no rage this time, no fight for control. This time, she was cold, focused.

Time seemed to slow as she concentrated on the Charter magic binding within herself, let herself feel the pain it caused her as the free magic creature writhed and twisted around her limbs, its dead servant barrelling towards her across the clearing.

She had always thought - when she was pretending to herself that she was not considering it - that to break the binding she would need to use her berserk rage.

But no, she realised now. The binding spell was designed to work  _despite_  the rage, to take it into account; Bel and Mistress Ader had known her too well. But if she could remain calm, if she could touch that bright inner part of her whilst remaining in a state of perfect steely focus… clawing together all the control that she had practiced, she focussed on the pain blooming within her.

The binding had weakened, she realised, the Charter marks fading over the years she had been beyond the Rift, drifting apart in small enough increments for her not to notice. All that was needed was a single pull…

She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth against the rage, and grasped at the ethereal substance of the free magic thing that was twined around her neck.

In a moment, the binding cracked apart, with a terrible tearing pain that made her whole body spasm. For one horrible instant Clariel thought she had made the wrong choice. That the magic that coursed through her body would tear her apart, the spell leaving her broken and burned as it departed, a weak thing bleeding on the ground in the battle between free and Charter magic.

But then, the golden light of the Charter marks that she no longer recognised was dissipating, and she felt Telunazith’s power surging up into her, filling her with blazing white.

It felt just as she remembered it. It felt  _good_. It felt intoxicating.

She let the raw power of the free magic use her body as a conduit, directing it in a single short, sharp blast at the creature that had been Marral.  _Goodbye, old friend_ , thought part of her mind, even as a larger part thought,  _yes_ , and  _more_.  

Telunazith was laughing, a wild laugh that sounded like the scraping of metal on glass. Clariel growled, as the dead thing’s spirit departed, the body burning, consumed in a column of white fire that would have been too bright to look at if she had not been wearing the mask, which narrowed her vision down. Nevertheless, Clariel had to shut her eyes against the glare. There were tears on her face beneath the metal, tears of pain and tears of joy, of relief.  _Freedom_ , she thought.

Then she remembered the free magic creature, that had made her do this.

 _No one_ , thought Clariel,  _will ever make me do anything_.

She screwed up her face as the rage came once more, summoned this time. With a snarl like a cornered animal, she turned suddenly on the creature - which had taken physical form now, as a whisp of a thing made of white fire - and grasped its burning throat with both hands. It did not burn her though, or if it did she did not notice the pain.

She was already burning.

She seized the creature, coming down hard on its strange, ancient mind, pinning it and binding it to her will.

Clariel had forgotten how  _easy_  it was.

“ _You will obey me_ " she bellowed, feeling the power rushing from her mouth, imbued within her very words. " _You will serve me_.”

Telunazith struggled for a mere moment - it was truly a weak thing, thought Clariel, weaker by far that Aziminil or Baazalanan had been, she could certainly do better - and then, all at once, she felt the creature’s will break.

What she did next, she would justify to herself later by saying  _I did not have a bottle_.

She crushed the squealing thing to her chest, where that hard crushing lump of Charter magic had been for nine long years, holding her in place, binding her… she now felt light, free. The creature slipped out of its body and beneath her very skin, its essence running down into her fingers, crackling in her veins.

She picked up the mask from where she had let it fall and held it in her hands for a second, staring into its empty eyes, before putting it back on.

White smoke poured from the mouth hole as she breathed, venting power.

She pushed the rage back down again - she could do it more easily now, she found, everything seemed easier with so much power - and simply stood there for a while, feeling the energy surging in her limbs, a great roiling sea of it.

"Now" Clariel said aloud, in a voice that was her own, and yet not entirely her own, "what should I do next?"


End file.
